Improving file transfer in FCS networks

Abstract

In this paper, we compare the performance of two transport protocols, SCTP and the New-Reno variant of TCP, for file transfers in two FCS networking scenarios. We argue why SCTP is better suited for file transfers in a network prone to resource failures. To measure performance, we implemented FTP over SCTP in a FreeBSD environment. Our results indicate for our tested path configurations, (1) using SCTP as the transport for FTP significantly reduces file transfer time, and (2) FTP over SCTP is more robust to losses.